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Stories of money

A gold (and silver) standard

Cities and empires traded without using coins for over 2,000
years. But when ancient Mediterranean kingdoms like Lydia (in
modern Turkey) began issuing pieces of electrum (a mixture of gold
and silver) like this one, of a consistent weight and purity, the
idea quickly caught on. This is one of the earliest coins in the
world, and today the change in our pockets is based on the same
inspirational idea that brought it into being.

Money talks

As well as having purchasing power, coins also have the power to
send messages through the images or writing on them. Roman
emperors, such as Nero, often used money as a way of presenting a
particular image of themselves on coins that circulated throughout
the empire’s many provinces.

Sea change

For thousands of years, cowrie shells were used as currency
around the world, from China to Arabia and Africa. Their widespread
use shows that people entrusted such objects a worth independent of
their intrinsic value, enabling their daily trade.

Ways and means

As well as being used as money, coins can symbolise spiritual
well-being, fertility, or other sorts of wealth. In Buddhist
cultures, offerings of money were thought to bring spiritual
benefit to the donor. This vase and 66 bronze coins were part of a
group of offerings dedicated to the Buddha by a man called
Vagramarega, for the benefit of himself and his family.

Seeing is believing

Islam became the dominant religion of the Middle East and North
Africa from around the AD 650s. The Umayyad Caliph 'Abd al-Malik of
the Islamic Empire is shown on his early coins as a powerful ruler.
In AD 696–7, his coinage was reformed. His image was removed,
replaced by Qur’anic inscriptions in Arabic. This became standard
across the Islamic World for hundreds of years.

Something of note

This 14th century banknote has the grand name ‘Great Ming
Circulating Treasure Certificate’. It was the Chinese who first
printed a value on a piece of paper and persuaded everyone that it
was worth what it said it was. The whole modern banking system of
paper and credit is built on this one simple act of faith.

Just giving

In medieval and Renaissance Europe, Christians supported the
clergy, maintained churches and assisted the poor through the
payment of tithes. They also made a wide range of voluntary
donations and charitable provisions. This box is a rare survivor of
a type that must once have been common at the entrance to a chapel
or near an altar or devotional image.

Trading places

For centuries, people in West Africa traded the gold found there
along the historic caravan routes across the Sahara. People in the
Asante kingdom used gold dust measured with special weights and
scales to make payments and pay taxes. By the 1400s, Portuguese
traders reached the West African coast by sea, establishing trade
links between Europe and West Africa.

Taking stock

A rapid increase in the amount of money in circulation, or a
‘bubble’, when prices increase dramatically, can lead to financial
crisis. This medal marks the stoppage in 1720 of a French bank
founded by Scottish economist John Law. Law overstated the assets
of his Mississippi Company, causing a rush to buy shares. When
shareholders demanded cash payment a run on the bank and financial
chaos followed.

Change is
good

In the early 1900s this British penny was defaced to promote the
suffragette cause. This bold criminal act was one of many that
catapulted the movement for women’s right to vote into the
political limelight. The penny stands for all those who fought for
this monumental change.

Shell out for currency

Currencies made from stone, feather, or shells, like this Kina
shell from Papua New Guinea have performed an important social and
cultural function, alongside their economic one in many parts of
the world. Today, this heritage is a source of pride for some
countries, and traditional currencies often feature in the design
of their national coins and banknotes.

Ring the changes

With infrastructure virtually destroyed in the devastating
earthquake in 2010, the people of Haiti rapidly embraced mobile
phone payments. When it comes to turning the phone into a wallet,
the UK and much of Europe fall well behind countries like Haiti
where wireless and mobile technologies are changing people’s
lives.